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At its fall meeting in November, Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure approved a new subcommittee report, Accommodating Faculty Members Who Have Disabilities, for publication and wide distribution.

When Alex Lubet, professor of music at the University of Minnesota, returned to his job after surgery on his neck, he found that he fell between the cracks of the university’s disability-accommodation policies. As Peter Monaghan reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, although Lubet was “permanently partially disabled,” he discovered he was “not entitled to workplace accommodations.” Lubet was provided “adaptive office equipment” but not consulted about his needs. As a consequence, he could rarely use what was provided.

Boldness, defense, and the necessity of talking back remain as central to life with disability in our time as in Francis Bacon’s age. “Therefore all deformed persons are extreme bold,” Bacon wrote, “first, as in their own defence, as being exposed to scorn, but in process of time, by a general habit.”